Leveling Up

Rajath Shourie was introduced to bridge as a child by his family, but didn't really play until he had retired from his career in distressed debt investing. He took up the game during Covid, learning online, and went to his first in-person duplicate at the Austin NABC in late 2021. Since then he has had a number of successful finishes, including wins in the world transnational teams in Argentin...

The year is 1990. A teenage Danny Miles is introduced to bridge by his grandmother, Frances — proving once again that grandmothers are the game’s most effective recruiters. The hobby stuck. Danny went on to win four Canadian Open Championships and one Mixed title, along with representing Canada internationally. In addition to playing, he has dabbled in bridge administration — serving on his local...

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Bill Bailey has an unusual bridge history. He discovered bridge in book form in his early 20s. He’d heard it was the “chess of card games” and so decided to buy an Intro to Bridge book. This started a 30-year habit of reading bridge books while nary touching a card. He was fascinated by declarer play problems in particular. His 3rd book was Bridge With the Blue Team . Then he started reading all o...

Owen Lien grew up in Hickory, NC, and now live in Oak Park, MI. He started playing bridge at 9 and now has over 20,000 masterpoints. He was a member of the US Junior Bridge Team from 2006 - 2014, winning the World Junior Championship in 2013. He worked in Real Estate Appraising from 2011 - 2015; now he works as a full-time bridge pro.

Kai Eckert learned Bridge in July 2018 after his grandmother refused to teach him. He learned on vacation to surprise her, and then Bridge turned into being a little bit a lot. He could never seem to get enough Bridge in his life, so he found clubs, tournaments, SIVY, Twitch (V8mama’s livestream) and the USBF Jr. Training program. During this time, he also is working on an online business administ...

David Gold started as a top junior chess player before her learned bridge at school around age 16. David has been a fixture on England’s open team since 2004, winning a silver medal in the World Bridge Games in 2008. He won bronze medals in world championships in 2017 and 2022. In the US, he won the Vanderbilt in 2023 and the Mitchell BAM in 2017. David has won many events in the UK, including vic...

Josh Donn (or Jdonn, as he is commonly known in the world of bridge) is a professional bridge player, teacher, and writer. He was a member of the winning US junior team at the World Junior Team Championships in 2006. He won the Jacoby Open Swiss Teams recently in St. Louis, the Blue Ribbon Pairs in 2011, and the Roth Open Swiss Teams three times, in 2008, 2016, and 2019. Josh first learned bridge...

Adam Wildavsky is a retired software engineer and lifelong bridge enthusiast. An MIT graduate, he is an avid skier, swimmer, and Lindy Hop dancer. A student of Objectivism—the philosophy of Ayn Rand—he believes its principles are especially valuable for bridge players. When not traveling, Adam divides his time between Colorado in the winter and New York City, Paris, and Sarasota in the summer. Ada...

Frances Hinden started playing bridge seriously at Cambridge University, where she won the Portland Bowl, the Junior Camrose, and gained a silver medal in the first European Universities Championship. Since then she has won many UK events, including multiple Camrose trophies and the Premier League, Gold Cup and Spring Foursomes twice each. She played with Graham Osborne in the Open team for the Mi...

Joyjit Sensarma is a coach to many high-level partnerships. He was the coach of the USA Seniors teams that won the world championship in 2024 and finished third in 2025. He has also coached the Indian and Irish national teams.

Gonzolo Goded started playing on Spain’s junior team in 1996 and joined the open team in 2008. He studied computer science and worked as a programmer before he became a full-time pro. He is currently working on the Bridge Owl system, which uses cameras at clubs and tournaments to create a full and (hopefully) accurate record of the bidding and play. I first met him at the NABC in San Francisco, wh...

Sjoert Brink is one of the top players in the world. Together with his partner Bas Drijver, he has won the Bermuda Bowl three times—once for the Netherlands (2011) and twice for Switzerland (2021 and 2023)—and the Open Olympiad for the Netherlands (2016). He also won the Mixed world championships playing with Barbara Ferm in 2022. He has won many European and North American championships as well....

Kim Frazer was an international rifle shooter who represented Australia at all levels of competition over a 28-year period from 1978 to 2006. She competed at the Olympic Games in Athens as well as 4 World Championships, 4 Commonwealth Games, winning Gold medals on 3 occasions and multiple World Cups. She became interested in the mental side of sport following an introduction to the subject during...

Alan Shillitoe is the current England U16 Squad Leader and a former U21/U26 Coach and England junior international. In over 20 years working with the squads, he has coached more than 200 players to have played internationally, many of whom have won medals at Euro/World level. He also developed the English national Junior Award Scheme and curriculum for youth players and in 2024 was a recipient of...

Gavin Wolpert is a 43-year old Canadian American Pro Bridge player turned online teacher. He grew up in a bridge playing family in Toronto. From age 14 he began traveling the world playing bridge. In 2001, he became a full-time professional bridge player and has never looked back. During the pandemic Gavin began teaching online and has developed a large following of players playing the system taug...

Per-Ola Cullin is a member of the Swedish Open team and lives in Stockholm with his wife and two kids. He is an associate judge at the Court of Appeals in Stockholm, currently working at the office of the Ombudsman of Justice monitoring the legality and appropriateness of the activities of public authorities. Some impressive results include wins in the Life Master Pairs 2011 and World Mind Games 2...

Jason Feldman is an immigration attorney and accomplished professional bridge player. Raised in a bridge-playing family, he learned the game at ten and went on to win the World Junior Championship (2006), the NABC Open Swiss Teams (2008), and Canada’s CNTC titles in 2023 and 2025, along with numerous additional top-ten finishes. Beyond the table, Jason co-founded BridgeWinners.com, a leading onlin...

In 1991, Jeff Ferro performed the rare feat of playing in two world championships: he represented the USA in the Bermuda Bowl and the junior world championships. His team made the quarterfinals in the Bermuda Bowl and won the youth championships. Two years later, he added on a bronze medal in the junior world championships and a win in the Grand National Teams. Then followed a 25-year hiatus durin...

Jill Meyers has won 8 world championships: four Venice Cups, one mixed team, one McConnell, and two women’s pairs. She currently ranks 10th on the WBF’s women’s all-time list. She has won 17 NABC+ titles and finished 2nd an additional 23 times. She was inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 2014. Jill only plays bridge part-time, because she has a career in Hollywood: she is the music supervisor o...

Daniel Korbel was born in Toronto, Canada, but currently resides in Las Vegas. He has won four Canadian Championships and four NABCs. He has 7 second place finishes in NABCs, a world championship silver, and two world championship bronze medals. When not playing bridge, you can find Daniel in the gym, at the piano bench, or at the Texas Hold’em poker tables.

Geoff Hampson was born and raised in Toronto Canada and emigrated to the USA 31 years ago. He has lived in Las Vegas, Nevada, for the last 18 years. Seen above with his wife Lindsay and their golden retriever, Charlie. Geoff has won 25 NABC+ championships, with an additional 15 second place finishes. He is a World Grand Master, with wins in the Rosenblum in 2010 and 2022. He and longtime partner E...

Almost every top player I’ve had on the podcast has mentioned that one of the key tools they use working on their partnerships is Cuebids, an app that was developed by Emanuel Unge and Daniel Koval Gullberg. So I wanted to have them on the podcast to talk about it. The episode comes off as a bit of an advertisement for Cuebids, but I think that’s appropriate—it’s such a great app and has become an...

Bill Neumann learned bridge at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, becoming an ACBL Life Master in 1972. After a long break from tournament play, he returned eight years ago and has since posted several NABC+ top-10 finishes in the last two years. A decades-long daily reader of The Bridge World , Bill writes about skill acquisition in bridge; he created the Red–Green framework and a comp...

Ida Grönkvist played her first international bridge tournament for Sweden when she was 12 years old and hasn’t been able to stop since. Now 30, Ida lives in Stockholm, where she works as an acting associate judge at The Svea Court of Appeals. Since 2022, she has served as a member on the executive council of the EBL and the chair of the EBL Youth Committee. Outside of bridge, she enjoys reading, r...